The Xmas Course for the International Horse Agility Club always ends early - at midnight on the 24th December, in fact! That's a real shame, because then trying to get an entry in becomes part of the pre-xmas rush, rather than something fun to do with Xmas days off.

I thought I wasn't going to manage it, combination of wet weather through part of December and just being busy. But Christmas Eve dawned dry and even partly sunny and I decided to give myself a pre-xmas treat and take some time out to attempt a competition entry. Fat Pony was up for it, "where have you been?", he said, "I've missed our playtimes"..... Which is good, because we had 2 slightly different courses to complete - our first ever attempt at an Advanced Level course online, plus the Liberty Silver course. Both courses had new challenges for us and things we hadn't had chance to practice but it was great fun and Fat Pony thought so too :-D He had his own ideas about which obstacles we should be completing next, which will have lost us points, but he was so enthusiastic and willing and we just had fun. With the sun shining, who could ask for a better treat for Xmas?! :-D

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas and quality time with your horses, ponies and donkeys! It's been the usual pre-xmas rush here, so I'm hoping for a bit of dry weather and looking forward to some pony playtime :-)

What instantly appealed to me about Horse Agility was how well human-horse body language communication (of the type promoted by, but not exclusive to, "Natural Horsemanship") lends itself to the successful completion of a testing course of Horse Agility obstacles. Only now and again there appears to me to be a mis-match. This month, its the "Snow drift jump" that I'm having some difficulty with, although a solution has presented itself.

For Medium level and above, the obstacle states "Create a jump that looks like a snow drift by draping white material or tarp over a jump, the horse must jump handler stands still at end of jump as horse goes over." (A top tip here is not to worry if you don't happen to have a white tarp, it's fun to get into the spirit of the season, but any jump-able object will do, it doesn't actually have to be white - and it doesn't have to be very high - but the horse must do a proper jump over.) My problem with this obstacle is that I've been busy teaching the ponies to tune into what I'm doing and to mirror me quite closely. This is fantastic for leading with a loose rope as well as for effective Liberty work. The pony goes where I go, matches my direction and also my speed. I walk, pony walks, I trot, pony trots, I halt.......

So now, pony and I approach the jump in trot. For a warm up, I jump the (very small!) jump and pony jumps with me. Fantastic :-D So next pony and I approach the jump in trot, pony is all set to jump..... and I stop dead "at end of jump". What happens? Well trained, tuned in, pony mirrors me perfectly and slams on the brakes just before take off, nearly skidding into the jump, then looks at me with a "what did you do that for?" expression!

For me, on first inspection, this poses a dilemma. It would appear that I either have to re-train pony to stop mirroring me, something I am very reluctant to do as I feel this would be a step backwards for our relationship; or I have to somehow get pony going more ahead of me approaching the jump, so that he's already taken off before I come to a standstill, possibly with "chasing" him over the jump as well, which I think would be quite hard for me to co-ordinate accurately and I also feel would not do a great deal for pony's confidence in approaching the jump (or any jump in the future!). Or I choose not to come to a standstill and jump the jump with the pony and loose marks.

So can I approach the problem from a new angle? I think I can and this is where the solution that works for me lies. The alternative solution is for me not to come to a standstill, but to be stationary throughout. As we have done some Parelli groundwork together, Fat Pony is used to both me moving with him (mirroring) and also me standing still and directing him from more of a distance. So the solution that works, without compromising our training, is for me to ask the pony to wait at a suitable distance, for me to position myself by the end of the jump, and then for me to ask the pony to trot and to come around me in a slight semi-circle, over the jump and then to slow down, stop, turn and face me and wait for me to re-join him and reward. As the jump is small (about 30cms) and we have been working on jumping confidence, this is a fairly easy task for Fat Pony to complete (famous last words!) and is in complete harmony with the training methods we have been using. Phew - dilemma over!

It will be interesting to see what techniques other competitors adopt, but this is the one that I'll be using.

You probably have to be from the North of England to understand the title.... ;-) "Twirly" being the pronunciation of "too early", in this case "is it twirly (too early) for Christmas"???

I'm not a fan of the shops shoving Christmas at us from the beginning of November.... For me, it loses the magic. December 1st would be quite early enough! But this November I couldn't help myself. I figured the 29th November is only a couple of days early..... So the Intro to Horse Agility clinic will have a Christmas theme to it. Ah well, might as well go the whole hog then! So that's one Christmas Course designed, a whole 11 (yes, eleven! not 10.... Christmas Bonus!!!) xmas themed obstacles, including some old favourites and a few new ones as well.

And whilst I do have a collection of xmas accessories already, a girl and her ponies simply can't have too much glitter ;-) Plus, I didn't have all the accessories for the new obstacles . So that was a good excuse to go shopping! Found some great, fun items to spice up the course. Getting quite excited :-D

About me

I started Horse Agility as a way of making groundwork more fun. It was something I could do with my semi-retired old boy and his small, cheeky, pony companion. What amazed me was how much it improved the ponies' general confidence in the process. I compete at Advanced 1 star level on line and at liberty.